Old 97's founding member/lead singer Rhett
Miller returns with his seventh solo album, The Messenger. Recorded earlier
over five days at The Isokon in Woodstock, NY with producer/musician Sam Cohen
(Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker), The Messenger sees Miller playing it faster
and looser than perhaps any other time in his quarter century career,
instilling what might be his most personal songs to date with a groovy
limberness that belies the reflective darkness within. When youre the lead
singer of an established, acclaimed band, a solo album can be a tricky
proposition. Make something comparable
to the work of your existing band and its like why bother? Make something
radically different and you run the risk of alienating the people who know you
from your band work. Rhett has managed
to avoid falling into either of those traps. While the Old 97s have rolled
along for over two decades now, he has carved out a niche for himself as a solo
artist with a more indie rock-infused spin on alt-country.An intimate,
unflinching reflection on what makes him tick, warts and all. None of these
dozen tracks would fit into the Old 97s rocking approach. Rather the songs,
and sound, on the record is more
measured, leaving plenty of room for thoughts about depression and insecurity
and modern life and somehow wanting to live despite it all.Musically,
there are plenty of Tom Petty influences. He even sounds like Petty,
drawling on Wheels and I Used to Write in Notebooks. The latter, a sometimes lighter look at how technology has
changed the way he lives, is meshed with a
darker expression of his fear of death in
a reserved voice thats sympathetic and melancholy. Hes angry on the
harder-edged Permanent Damage, as the band,
led by guitarist/producer Cohen, chugs
behind him with a psychedelic Byrds-styled strum. Other titles like Broken, Close Most of the
Time, I Cant Change, and The
Human Condition indicate his sometimes
wincingly honest introspective nature here. He gets teary on the ballad Did
I Lose You, and goes tender country
on Bitter/Sweet, a lovely waltz time and
another lost love tale where he pines for an old flame. 
AmericanSongwriter.comEXCELLENT!!

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